The present invention relates to a xylophone, and more particularly to a toy xylophone.
Conventionally, a toy xylophone includes a trapezoid wood frame riveting thereon a predetermined number of parallelly arranged metal plates of different lengths for playing a song when the metal plates are suitably beaten in sequence by a beater. Such xylophone suffers from the following disadvantages that the riveting work is cumbersome and that the metal plates must be made of the expensive steel.
In an effort to overcoming the above shortcomings, it has been proposed that the two horizontally spaced supports of the trapezoid positioning frame should each include a plurality of arcuate grooves having the surfaces thereon attached to a cushioning member for supporting thereon respective ends of metal note-producing pipes of different lengths. While such xylophone achieves the effect that the pipes can be made of the cheap aluminum alloy to obtain notes of a good tonality, it suffers from the fact that the pipes cannot be secured to the positioning frame so that it cannot be optionally moved after assembled in order to prevent the pipes from escaping from the arcuate grooves.
In an attempt to obviate the shortcoming encountered by the preceding xylophone(s), it was proposed that the ends of the pipes are radially holed so that a wire and a positioning button can securely fix the pipes on the positioning frame. Nevertheless, the holing procedure and the procedure of threading the wire in the end holes of the pipes are troublesome and time-consuming.
In addition to the shortcomings separately described above, all the prior xylophones commonly have the following disadvantages:
1. The positioning frame is integrally formed so the it is relatively large and inconvenient both in packaging and in carrying. The inconvenience will become more apparent if the scale or the number of the pipes is expanded.
2. The note produced by the pipe is solely determined by the length thereof. Theoretically, the length of a pipe having constant diameter and wall thickness can be set to produce notes in a full scale, however, in practice, a pipe having constant diameter and wall thickness can only produce accurate notes in a predetermined range of the music scale. In other words, if a xylophone can produce accurate notes of higher frequencies, it will be incapable of accurately producing notes of relatively lower frequencies. This phenomenon will be more evident if the number of the pipes used is increased.
It is therefore attempted by the Applicant to deal with the situation described above.